Artists at school

Lisa McLellan

Performing artsDance

Presentation

Lisa McLellan has 20 years of experience as a teacher, artistic director, performer and choreographer. In 1985, she obtained a Bachelor's degree in Contemporary Dance with honours from Concordia University. She worked for the Compagnie Marie Chouinard, Tangente and Concordia University for 5 years. Between 1995 and 2000, she directed a non-profit community arts organization which offered artist residencies in schools as well as other community arts projects. Presently, she is enchanted by intergenerational projects and choreographies. Her latest, Un Beau Petit Monde, included 55 participants ranging in age from 10 months to 75 years … and every age in between.

Proposed approach and type of activities

Lisa McLellan's artistic approach stimulates individual creativity and encourages collaboration and team work. Her approach underscores the creative process rather than the product and is conducted in an environment that is relaxed, fun and non-judgmental. The work is based on problem solving in a group and as such fosters imagination, perseverance, communication and discovery, which are all essential to creativity. Within the structured form of the workshop the children are encouraged to be themselves and to express themselves freely. This freedom fosters self-confidence, pride and profound satisfaction... eyes will twinkle and hearts will be happy!

Lisa uses the elements of creative dance in a problem-solving approach to stimulate and explore the many possibilities of movement expression. These movements, related to the content of a story, theme or objective, are then used to recreate the story in dance form. Lisa tells the story of the Life and Death of a Supernova Star and then leads the children in a warm up. The exercises in the warm up reflect the images, actions and emotions of the story and prepare the children for creating, by putting them in touch with their bodies, their imaginations and their feelings. The next part of the workshop is based on exploration. The children experiment and make mini-creations based on the different structures that the artist has created to express the themes within the story. The artist guides the children and helps in the production of the mini-creations by making suggestions, solving communication problems etc. At the end of the workshop the children show their dances (mostly very short). These presentations are important moments for self-esteem, for overcoming fear and for task completion. The process of interpreting words (ideas, feelings, actions) into movement stimulates comprehension of concept in a dynamic fashion and is therefore the key to an integrated learning experience through the arts ... learning, growing and having fun.

Examples of activities

Creation of a dance based on an educational theme (science, language, math, history, French).